The HA-1112 Buchón fighter on display at a Michigan museum with its Spanish roundels

@DefAviation ES 2·09·2023 · 23:47 0

El Hispano Aviación HA-1112 Buchón, la versión española del caza alemán Messerschmitt Bf-109, se exhibe hoy en día en varios museos del mundo.

The new life of a Spanish HA-1112 Buchón fighter converted into a German Bf-109G
Two original Messerschmitt Bf-109s of the World War II still airworthy

One such museum is Portage Air Zoo in Michigan, United States, as posted by @Alco_1800 on Twitter yesterday. The peculiarity of the copy that is preserved there is that, unlike other sites -where the Buchones are kept decorated as if they were German Bf-109s-, this copy preserves the livery that it wore with the Spanish Air Force.

Between 1945 and 1956, Hispano Aviación built a total of 238 HA-1109 and HA-1112 aircraft at its Seville factory, a model popularly known as "Buchón". After World War II, Spain bought a large number of Rolls-Royce Merlin engines that had powered the British Supermarine Spitfire fighter. After its retirement from service, the Air Force sold 27 aircraft for the filming of the movie "Battle of Britain" (1968). At least part of the aircraft sold had belonged to the 71 Tactical Squadron of Wing 7, created at the Tablada Aerodrome in 1957, and transferred to Gando (Gran Canaria) the following year.

As Fernando de la Cueva pointed out in an article by the magazine "Defensa" published in January of this year, until its deployment in Ifni in 1961, the planes of the 71 Squadron were decorated with a dark indigo blue livery. It is the decoration of the airplane preserved in the Air Zoo.

The Buchón of the Air Zoo bears the number 9-71 and the registration C.4K-19, but it is actually the C.4K-100, as noted by Gary Vincent on AirHistory.net, noting that this Buchón was one of those sold by the Army of the Air for the aforementioned film, being decorated as a Bf-109 of the Luftwaffe as "Red 13".

The plane bears the inscription "Mapi" next to the nose, a text bearing the number 71-5 (C.4K-9) and referring to the pilot's wife, named María del Pilar. The paradox is that this aircraft even came to be decorated in British livery and MI-V identifier to play the role of a Hawker Hurricane.

After the film, the C.4K-100 was one of 21 aircraft loaned to Wilson" Connie" Edwards as payment for flying and coordinating the planes during filming. During the film it carried the British registration G-AWHJ, but on February 20, 1969 it was re-registered with the American registration N90605.

On February 28, 1975, the plane crashed while landing in Oxford, Connecticut, according to its record at Goodall.com.au. The landing gear broke and the plane has not flown since then. On January 23, 1978 it was sold to the Kalamazoo Aviation History Museum, being registered as N76GE in 1987. There it was currently retains. On Inch's blog High Guy you can see a good series of photos of this plane.

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Source of photos: Skyfox1 (1) / Skyfox1 (2) / Michael Barera (1) / Michael Barera (2) / Travel West Michigan.